Young Writers Society

For more than an entire trimester with a English class where we wrote a (long) short story and a creative writing class, I kept trying to come up with the perfect formula for writing fiction and I had this circle graph thing that I was working on that I think would have turned out beautifully if I hadn't terminated the project. I had everything from the story ideas to the actual writing of the story. The problem with the magic formula that I was putting together was that while I was continuing with the process my writing got worse and worse. What I concluded was that there is NO perfect writing formula. Creative or Artistic writing is closer related to music than to an essay. Or at least it should be. Writing comes to life when the author forgets that he has to sell the story to a publisher and that your story potentially has no audience. The author needs to write for sake of being able to read his own work and say "I've done good." YOU NEED TO LIKE YOUR WORK. "The only rule is you can break any rule if you are willing to pay your price."

I want to know what everyone thinks of this magic or perfect formula. (I can show what I came up with or not. My vote is not but you decide.)

EaganDorian wrote:What I concluded was that there is NO perfect writing formula. Creative or Artistic writing is closer related to music than to an essay. Or at least it should be. Writing comes to life when the author forgets that he has to sell the story to a publisher and that your story potentially has no audience. The author needs to write for sake of being able to read his own work and say "I've done good." YOU NEED TO LIKE YOUR WORK. "The only rule is you can break any rule if you are willing to pay your price."

Truer freaking words have never been spoken. I've always held the belief that people trying to write and constantly think about nothing but getting published often hurt their own works in the ending. This is part of the reason why, after almost eleven years, I have not attempted once to have something published. Worry about the publishing later. Deal with what you're writing now, and worry about the story itself; not what targeted readers will think of it.